Agency Business

Judith Carr-Rodriguez, CEO and partner at independent full-service creative agency, FIG, joined Brian and Olivia this week on the podcast.

Judith shared how clients increasingly value small, senior teams over large pyramidal organizations, how FIG has grown by focusing on long-term AOR relationships rather than project-based work, and why the agency has become more selective as demand increases.

Judith also shares how Fig thinks about controlled growth, client fit and longevity, arguing that focus — not scale for scale’s sake — has become one of the most important disciplines for independent agencies.

1. Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
2. Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
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4. Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian and Luke Stillman open up about Madison and Wall's latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
5. Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Andrew Cohen, CEO of independent St. Louis creative agency Moosylvania, joined Brian and Olivia for a candid conversation about building an agency around senior talent, continuity, and long-term thinking.

Andrew shares the origin story of Moosylvania, founded by his father after leaving an IPG-owned agency, and reflects on taking over leadership during the pandemic as the firm evolved into a more digital, hybrid operation.

1. Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
2. Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
3. Inquire about Briefly.
4. Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian and Luke Stillman open up about Madison and Wall's latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
5. Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Brian and Olivia interview Dean Broadhead, founder of independent agency, Broadhead about how agencies should rethink production, talent, and investment as AI reshapes how work gets done.

Drawing on his “stop making shoes” framework, Dean explains why agencies should focus less on long-tail production and more on strategy, creativity, and risk mitigation, using AI to create space for higher-value work rather than replace it. The conversation also explores culturally led AI adoption, proprietary platforms built around subscription models, capital allocation decisions — including exiting an ESOP — and why independents may be better positioned to stay closely connected to clients as holding companies navigate structural change.

1. Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
2. Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
3. Inquire about Briefly.
4. Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian and Luke Stillman open up about Madison and Wall's latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
5. Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Brian interviews Ammunition CEO Jeremy Heilpern to examine how agencies can defend pricing and articulate value as AI reshapes workflows, timelines and client expectations.

Drawing on Ammunition’s growth from a category-focused shop into an independent agency with a broad client roster, Jeremy explains why specialization, internal production and deliberate investment decisions have been central to maintaining margins and client retention.

1. Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
2. Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
3. Inquire about Briefly.
4. Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian and Luke Stillman open up about Madison and Wall's latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
5. Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Brian and Olivia discuss 2026 agency trends with media and tech analyst Ian Whittaker. Drawing on his background in financial markets and consulting, Ian frames 2026 as a crossroads year for agencies, one defined less by immediate disruption than by a series of strategic choices that will determine longer-term positioning.

The conversation explores whether agencies can move up the value chain by better articulating the financial value of creativity, how AI has intensified pressure from tech platforms, and why independent agencies may be better positioned to defend pricing and confidence than holding companies. Whittaker also shares his outlook on organic growth across the major holding companies, the risks facing Dentsu’s international business, and what agency leaders should prioritize when hiring senior leadership in a market where creative credibility and business fluency increasingly need to coexist.

1. Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
2. Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
3. Inquire about Briefly.
4. Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian and Luke Stillman open up about Madison and Wall's latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
5. Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Mollie Rosen, president of member experience at the 4As, joins Olivia and Brian this week to unpack the 4As' 2026 Look Ahead report and what it signals about the future of agencies.

Agencies face two divergent but overlapping paths, according to Mollie. They can 1. Become platform- and technology-led or 2. Double down on creativity and strategic partnership. We explore how AI is accelerating this tension, why most agencies are likely to land somewhere along a continuum between the two extremes, and how longstanding issues around compensation models, talent strategy and investment risk could determine which agencies are best positioned to adapt.

• Subscribe for free to the Agency Business newsletter.
• Interested in joining Agency Business as a guest? Submit a pitch.
• Inquire about Briefly.
• Listen to 📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast: Brian opens up about his latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.
• Listen to 🎬 Screen & Sponsor: Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

This week Brian talks with Amanda Forgione, CEO of Morrison. We talk about many of the very human elements of running an independent agency with family roots in the industry, and contrast some of her agency's choices with those of the holding companies.

The episode also features a brief mention of Olivia's new subscription PR model offering agencies a weekly hour of senior strategic thinking. For details, email [email protected].

Subscribe to the Agency Business newsletter for episode notes and analysis. It’s free and drops every Monday.

Agency Business features agency CEOs and financial decision-makers alongside third party experts including agency pitch consultants. We are always accepting pitches, and are particularly interested in hearing from women and leaders of color.

📬 Pitch a guest or inquire about sponsorships:

📩 Brian at [email protected]

📩 Olivia at [email protected]

Follow Madison and Wall and FusionFront Media on LinkedIn for updates.

📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast – Brian opens up about his latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.

🎬 Screen & Sponsor – Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Welcome to Agency Business.

This week, Olivia and Brian talk with Steve and Robin Boehler of Mercer Island Group as the industry absorbs one of the most disruptive weeks in recent holding company history. The Bowlers break down Omnicom’s restructuring, including the abrupt shuttering of several legacy creative agencies, and explain why decades of diluted positioning left many large networks vulnerable. They also outline why consolidation is sharpening client anxiety, how brand clarity deteriorated across holding companies, and what marketers really look for when evaluating agency partners in periods of instability.

Steve and Robin discuss expected downstream effects for talent, pricing and media consolidation, the likelihood of further restructuring inside Omnicom, and why middle management may face the harshest employment cycle. They close by previewing their new book, a field guide designed to help agencies sharpen positioning, pitch more effectively and win more business.

The episode also features a brief mention of Olivia's new subscription PR model offering agencies a weekly hour of senior strategic thinking. For details, email [email protected].

Subscribe to the Agency Business newsletter for episode notes and analysis. It’s free and drops every Monday.

Agency Business features agency CEOs and financial decision-makers alongside third party experts including agency pitch consultants. We are always accepting pitches, and are particularly interested in hearing from women and leaders of color.

📬 Pitch a guest or inquire about sponsorships:

📩 Brian at [email protected]

📩 Olivia at [email protected]

Follow Madison and Wall and FusionFront Media on LinkedIn for updates.

📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast – Brian opens up about his latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.

🎬 Screen & Sponsor – Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Welcome to Agency Business.

This week, Olivia and Brian talk with Tombras president Dooley Tombras, who leads one of the industry’s few scaled, family-owned independent agencies. Dooley explains why Tombras built its full-service model by zigging against industry convention, how independence enables long-term investment in AI and first-party data, and why today’s consolidation cycle is pushing top talent toward indies.

He also discusses the agency’s hub-and-spoke staffing strategy, what “independence with scale” looks like across Knoxville, New York, Atlanta, and Buenos Aires, and why cultural stability at the top helps Tombras maintain an 83% new-business win rate.

In News of the Week:

• Majority of R&CPMK staff exit IPG to join Michael Nyman’s ACC
• Alex Lubar leaves DDB amid broader Omnicom consolidation.
• FutureBrand’s global leadership departs as the agency is folded into McCann.
• WPP Media wins the Henkel account across roughly 30 European markets.

The episode also features a brief mention of Olivia's new subscription PR model offering agencies a weekly hour of senior strategic thinking. For details, email [email protected].

Subscribe to the Agency Business newsletter for episode notes and analysis. It’s free and drops every Monday.

Agency Business features agency CEOs and financial decision-makers alongside third party experts including agency pitch consultants. We are always accepting pitches, and are particularly interested in hearing from women and leaders of color.

📬 Pitch a guest or inquire about sponsorships:

📩 Brian at [email protected]

📩 Olivia at [email protected]

Follow Madison and Wall and FusionFront Media on LinkedIn for updates.

📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast – Brian opens up about his latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.

🎬 Screen & Sponsor – Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.

Welcome to Agency Business.

This week, Olivia and Brian sit down with consultant and author Michael Farmer, who has spent three decades diagnosing the economic pressures inside agencies. Farmer explains why agencies still struggle to measure work, how rework distorts staffing needs, and how digital and social accelerated the long-running pattern of falling fees and rising workloads. He also outlines what AI will mean for both creative and media agencies, including major productivity gains that could compress fees unless leaders reinvest efficiencies into senior talent and reconnect creativity, media and brand strategy.

Michael shares insights from his early consulting work at Ogilvy, his analysis of media agency staffing models and his belief that MMM tools like Mutinex can help clients and agencies better understand where growth is actually coming from. He closes with what is ahead for him as he completes his new book Madison Avenue Media Madness and shifts his focus toward teaching and training.

In News of the Week:

• IPG, Dentsu, and Globant report financial results.
• Publicis publicly challenges Omnicom’s accounting approach.
• Paramount Skydance discloses that Publicis and Interpublic won its business with media sales agreements.

The episode also features a brief mention of Olivia's new subscription PR model offering agencies a weekly hour of senior strategic thinking. For details, email [email protected].

Subscribe to the Agency Business newsletter for episode notes and analysis. It’s free and drops every Monday.

Agency Business features agency CEOs and financial decision-makers alongside third party experts including agency pitch consultants. We are always accepting pitches, and are particularly interested in hearing from women and leaders of color.

📬 Pitch a guest or inquire about sponsorships:

📩 Brian at [email protected]

📩 Olivia at [email protected]

Follow Madison and Wall and FusionFront Media on LinkedIn for updates.

📊 The Madison and Wall Podcast – Brian opens up about his latest work — plus crucial economic, financial, and industry trends.

🎬 Screen & Sponsor – Olivia & VaynerMedia's Jessie Holder explore how brands are shaping Hollywood.